


Lessons

by AwesomePossum



Series: Guilded Days: A Bard of Ravnica [2]
Category: Magic: The Gathering (Card Game)
Genre: Centaurs, Elemental - Freeform, Gen, It's not easy being Gruul, Music, Near Death Experiences, Selesnya Conclave, Simic Combine Monsters, being a prodigy sucks bricks, classic music snobbery, dryad, leshy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:16:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26913505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwesomePossum/pseuds/AwesomePossum
Summary: It's tough to be a prodigy in a commune that asks every member to do the thing they are best at--whether you want to or not. Yenna struggles with guilt, talent, and obligation. Also, galloping away into the woods when you are young and upset is really not a good idea.
Series: Guilded Days: A Bard of Ravnica [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1963186
Kudos: 1
Collections: Guilded Days: A Bard of Ravnica





	Lessons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gamb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gamb/gifts).



“Yenna.”

Fingers sleeping on the strings of her shamisen, bachi hanging loosely from her other hand. Yenna didn’t hear her. She was looking out the window of Maestra Talisen’s practice room, watching the other children in her creche play kickball on the wide terrace outside.

“Yenna?”

“Mmm.” This time Yenna reflexively made a noise of acknowledgement, but continued looking out the window, her mind drifting. It was a warm spring day, one of the first truly warm days of the year, and the smell of new grass and leaves drifted into the practice chamber on an alluring breeze. With her large ears she could easily hear everything happening in the children’s game: boisterous Joro scuffling and yelling to make way, quick-witted Lyriene trying to distract him with taunts while Berris ran in for the ball, Sabri fussing in her over-sensitive way and saying that it wasn’t fair…

“ _Yenna._ ”

The Maestra’s tone snapped her out of her reverie, and she quickly turned back to her instructor. The older human woman was looking at her sternly over her wire-rimmed spectacles, her thick braids, once black but now stormy gray, pinned in elaborate coils atop her head without a single hair out of place. Her leather tunic, perfectly clean, encased her like armor, pinned high at the throat with a clasp bearing the Selesnyan crest. Even after four years of training under the woman, Yenna still found her intimidating. Now, her instructor’s lips were pressed into a thin line of disapproval that never boded well

Yenna looked down guiltily. “Yes Maestra. Sorry Maestra.”

Maestra Talisen shifted ever-so-slightly, somehow looking down at Yenna even though, seated on their practice cushions, they were nearly the same height. Yenna knew that look, knew the lines of the woman’s shoulders and the tilt of her sharp chin. She looked at her hands on the neck of the shamisen as she felt preemptive shame leaking heat into her cheeks.

“Yenna. You have the ability to be the greatest bard the District has seen in a generation. You have remarkable talent, but it must be cultivated and pruned and cared for, and that requires hard work. Remember that when you play, you represent Selesnya and all our ways have to offer.” She raised a thin, arched eyebrow. “And when you squander away your practice time, you thumb your nose at your vernadi and all the support they have given you.”

“Yes Maestra. Sorry Maestra.” 

Yenna knew it was her own fault, knew that if she just stayed focused during lessons and stopped letting her mind flitter about she wouldn’t have to hear this speech, which she’d heard so many times it had long been memorized. And it was all the worse because it was true--she was, by any interpretation of the word, a prodigy. She had shown musical aptitude within a year of coming to the Selesnya, and the Conclave had been cultivating her talents ever since, giving her every opportunity they could offer. Now at thirteen years old, she could play nine different instruments, five of them proficiently, could read and write musical notation as if it were her native language, could tune any of her instruments by ear alone, and could play most of the Hymns of the Old Grove from memory--even Reislinda’s  _ Overture to Lost Spring,  _ which most adults considered a reasonable challenge. And yet…

And yet, often she found herself wishing she could just skip her practice sessions and spend time with her creche. The distractibility had always been there--when she was a very young child she kept escaping her guardians when it was time for lessons and turned up running along the glade paths an hour later, to the point where her voda eventually assigned a young centaur in courier training to keep track of her so she would have an attendant she couldn’t outrun. The hope was that she would outgrow her restless impulses as she got older. 

That was not the case. Oh, her self control had gotten better, and she dutifully reported for every lesson and practice hour and tutoring appointment made for her. But the desire to be elsewhere had, if anything, gotten worse. 

Maestra Talisen held her with a pointed gaze for several seconds longer than was necessary, before giving a small, sharp nod. “Good. Many people have seen what you can become, child, and put their faith in you to realize that potential. You owe it to them to hone your skills, and not let your gifts go to waste.”

“Yes Maestra. Sorry Maestra.” 

Yenna wanted to focus on her lessons and be a good student, she really did--but it was like there was a lazy, disobedient imp inside of her who always made her do exactly the wrong thing. She knew Maestra Tailsen was right; Selesnya had given her everything, and it was not so much to ask that she stay on-task during practice. It just felt like she was helpless to live up to even the simplest of expectations, even when she wanted to, desperately… It was just that kickball was one of her favorites. But then, that was always the way these days, wasn’t it? If it wasn’t kickball it was something else, some other sport or game or even nothing at all that her unruly brain used to distract her. She hated disappointing people, it actually made her feel kind of sick inside, but she just felt like she was always missing things. She so rarely got to play with the creche these days, with all her time spent practicing--she didn’t even see them that much during the day now, since she had been taken out of regular instruction and assigned to private tutors to allow enough time for her music lessons. She only got to spend time with them in the evenings before bedtime, and then she felt left out as they excitedly rehashed the day’s events. Events that it seemed she was always hearing in the distance or watching out of windows.

Maestra Talisen sighed, her dour face softening just a bit. “I know it’s difficult, child. Putting the good of the Conclave before your own wishes is…hard. On the young.” The older woman looked aside, and for a second Yenna saw a glimpse of someone else there, someone young, and fiery, and fighting. Then Talisen drew a breath and straightened, returning to herself. “But it becomes easier, and as you get older you will understand that directing your gifts to the betterment of the Conclave is worthwhile. That the peace and harmony and shared unity among us all is worth the effort tenfold.”

“I just wanted to go play with the creche…” Yenna murmured, hoping to explain where she knew she couldn’t excuse.

“I know,” Maestra Talisen said, more gently than expected. “But they don’t have the abilities that you do. Nature is seldom fair in it’s pickings and choosings--but trust that it knows the way.”

Nothing could be truer than the first part--it was the second Yenna struggled with, all the way down into her bones. She watched Talisen carefully from under her long lashes. Her Maestra was a highly accomplished composer and performer, now a musical instructor renowned across five districts--lately, Yenna found herself wondering how much time the woman had given up of her own life, with her own friends, in exchange for the talents she brought to the Conclave. The thought of it--and the thought that she was on the same path--made her feel like someone was squeezing her ribs in a giant fist. She wasn’t ready for that, how could she be? She was too selfish to even be a diligent student. In fact, in the most shameful, secretive place in her heart, she sometimes wished she had no talent at all, so she could just be free like the other children her age. How could nature possibly know what it was doing if it gave all these gifts to  _ her _ ?

It always felt like it must be a mistake, but no one seemed to see it but her and it seemed that it wasn’t going to be corrected. She did her best to soothe herself with the Conclave teachings: things were as they were meant to be, her place in the guild chosen by Mat’Selesnya, and everything would become clear in time if she just made peace with it. But no matter how much she tried, she still spent every day swinging wildly between distracted rebellion and pious but doomed attempts to force peaceful dedication. Apparently lacking the will to create Selesnyan serenity, she’d decided the best she could do was to just ignore her urges as best she could, hope the problem went away on its own, and apologize when it didn’t.

Like today.

“Remember that there is only one Selesnya, Yenna,” the Maestra continued, settling into the cadence of words trod over many times before, “and it is each of us. As we go, so goes the guild. When you let your talents go fallow, you lessen the Conclave, but when improving yourself, you improve the collective. Your guild has made sacrifices for you, and will again. You need to be willing to make sacrifices for it. For us.”

Yenna’s guilt had congealed into a hard lump under her breastbone, as it usually did by this point in the discussion. The worst of it was that she hardly needed Maestra Talisen to point out how selfish she was being--she was constantly aware of it, and brought herself to task more than the adults did. She knew the strength of Selesnya was the community; that it was everyone’s responsibility to do their best,  _ be _ their best, to contribute to the guild as a whole. She just couldn’t seem to turn those thoughts into doing the right thing, when the right thing was staying focused on her practice and the wrong thing was really, really wanting to be outside with her friends. 

“Okay Maestra,” Yenna said quietly, keeping a tight stopper on the maelstrom of confused thoughts tumbling through her head. “I’ll try my best.” It was all she could offer, even if it never seemed to be good enough.

“That will do.” Maestra Talisen raised the thin strip of willow which was both her conducting baton, and occasionally a switch to the knuckles of students who had been lazy in their practicing. “Now, from the beginning.” 

Yenna breathed out and let her fingers flow back into the song, plucking the strings with her bachi and trying to forget her shame by slipping back into the music. It worked a little.  _ At least she doesn’t bring up the orphan thing anymore,  _ she thought, trying to settle herself. 

When Yenna had started under Maestra Talesin’s tutelage, early versions of this conversation usually included explicit reference to her being a Gruul foundling and war orphan, and how the Selesnya had taken her in and offered her a new life after her parents were killed in a raid on South Market. But that line of discussion had been so upsetting that she actually mustered the courage to say something about it to Loreena, her voda. Yenna had become part of the dryad’s vernadi when she was brought into the Selesnya, after she showed immediate musical promise--Loreena was a skilled musician herself, an elegant harpist, and volunteered to take Yenna in to encourage her talents. The maternal dryad had always been nurturing and supportive, someone Yenna felt she could talk to, someone she could trust. And although Yenna never found out exactly what transpired between the two women, after she had told Loreena how she felt, the Maestra had never again mentioned her parentage. 

As if she would forget. As if she  _ ever _ forgot.

She had never seen a Gruul, and hoped she never would, but all Selesnyan children were warned of their mad violence and savagery. The creche all told stories about the Gruul, teasing each other by lurking behind bushes and pretending to be raiders or frightening each other in the dark after bedtime. Yenna joined in, of course, not wanting to draw attention to how uncomfortable it made her feel, not wanting to tell the other children that whenever they played these games it forced her to think about how close she came to being in the Clans.

Her fingers walked over well-worn trails of notes as her thoughts twisted in circles, like the kormira leaves spiraling down from the high branches in autumn. 

Had her parents been monsters? Part of her actually wanted to think so--it was easier to accept that they were gone if they were barbaric, like everyone said the Gruul were, that she had only been on the battlefield in harm’s way because they were cruel and indifferent even to their own children. But part of her wanted it to not be true, to think that they cared for her in their way and that they would have kept her safe if they could have. 

Because if all Gruul were monsters, then what did that mean for her? Was that why she was disobedient and unfocused with her lessons? Was that why it seemed so hard to set her selfishness aside and strive for the good of the Conclave? Was that why she chafed and got anxious when everyone told her what she had to live up to? 

What if there was still a monster somewhere inside of her?

Yenna pushed the thoughts aside and concentrated on her fingers, feeling the bite of the strings into her fingertips, blunted by years of calluses. Her hands walked nimbly across the neck of the shamisen, the warm high tones vibrating across the room. She moved into a familiar section of the piece, plucking the notes by memory, her fingers moving without thought after hours of relentless practice.

She knew how much she owed the Conclave. That was the problem.The guild was her family, her home, her teachers, her rescuers and providers--it had saved her from death, spared her the fate of her parents. Selesnya had given her everything,  _ was  _ everything to her…

How do you repay everything?

She shoved the thoughts down harder, doing her best to stay focused on her music and trying not to think about it. Her head was just filled with questions all the time, far too many questions. She knew it wasn’t the Selesnyan way to ask so many questions about everything. The Conclave encouraged adherence to the natural order, peaceful acceptance, and maintaining balance with the self and others. They didn’t encourage constantly letting the mind wander around and pluck at every little thing around you. She had often wanted to bring up some of her thoughts during the creche’s spiritual lessons with Brother Yevallas--but none of the other children ever said anything, nodding and listening as if it all made sense to them in a way that was clear and natural and easy. So she never said anything either. She was resolved not to let anyone know how her questions and fears ate at her the way embers eat through a sheet of parchment, all hungry orange threads and dark-edged empty holes. She was no philosopher, one of the great Brightleaf scholars or Minds of the Springtide Order to ponder how Selesnya warped and wefted with the rest of the world. She was just an aberration, someone who just could not fit in even after years in the Conclave, who couldn’t get things right for all her effort and grief and failure--an outsider. And the last thing she wanted was to feel like more of one.

_ Skreeetch. _

“Yenna!”

Yenna flinched at the sour note and the voice even before she had fully come back to herself, her body reflexively tensing for a sharp swat to the back of her hands by Maestra Talesin’s willow baton.  _ An easy section in the center of a verse, no reason to mess that up except sloppiness and daydreaming, Maestra will rip me up for that one and good riddance, Mat’Selesnya why can’t I ever just do things right, just once…  _ But the sting of the switch didn’t come. Cautiously, Yenna opened one eye, then the other.

Maestra Talesin’s baton was not reaching for her at all. Instead, the willow hung loosely from her left hand, while her forehead was sunk into the palm of her right. This had never happened before, and worry unfolded in Yenna’s chest.  _ What have I done now?  _

“...Maestra Talesin?” Yenna ventured softly. “Are...are you alright?’

A beat. A moment of stillness. After what seemed like hours, she answered. “I’m fine, Yenna.” The Maestra still hadn’t moved, and now Yenna was starting to feel true alarm. Then she continued, and it suddenly got worse. “You know, I think that’s enough practice for today.”

Yenna froze, her ears pinning flat against her head even as chills raised the fur along her spine. Not only had this never happened before--this was  _ impossible _ , like hyacinths in winter. In the stillness of the chamber, she could clearly hear the sound of her own surging heartbeat.

“What? No, no, Maestra I’m ready to pay attention, I’ll do it right this time I promise-”

The Maestra held up her hand in a sharp motion, a conductor cutting her orchestra. Yenna bolted to her feet, her legs weak, shaky. Maestra Talesin finally looked up at her, and her eyes were tired, her face that of an older woman.

“Enough for today,” she said, her words tight.

“Maestra please…” Yenna was on the verge of tears, her voice choked down to a whisper. “I--I’m sorry.”

“I am aware.” Maestra Talisen let her hand fall. “I am not angry with you, Yenna. But you have to want this. To be exceptional is to be apart, to make sacrifices, to work while others play. It is not for the faint of heart, and it certainly is not for the uninvested. No amount of talent on your part or training on mine will  _ make _ this work--either it is worth what you are going to give up…” She fixed Yenna with a piercing gray that spoke of years of struggle. “Or it isn’t. You need to know which, because neither of us has that much to give for a dream that is dead on the vine.” 

Yenna tried to speak and couldn’t get the words out, and shook her head mutely, desperately.  _ No no no please don’t send me away. _

Maestra Talisen met her brimming eyes for a second-- then turned her head. “Go. Play with your friends. Take some time to figure things out. If you decide you are ready, you can come back. If not...well. The loss of potential would be great, but not as great as the wasted effort.” She let out a long, worn breath, and gave a half-hearted wave of her fingers, a clear gesture of dismissal.

“Go.”

Yenna stood in front of her teacher, desperately wanting to say something. Anything. She looked for the words to make it right...and found disappointment. Failure. Nothing. Without willing her legs to move, or even thinking at all, she bolted from the room with her shamisen still clutched in her hand. Her hooves echoed along the stone portico as she fled, the clatter startling a cloud of doves from the crenellated wall. She cleared the steps down to the lawn with a leap, the soft grass muffling a graceless landing. There was a sound from the far side of the field; it might have been Joso calling her name. It didn’t matter. She didn’t stop. She couldn’t. 

She raced away from the cultivated hall, off of the path and into the free-growing glades. Underbrush snapped at her long legs and thin branches raked at her. She didn’t care, not even about the creatures she scattered who protested in chitters and angry whistles in her wake. She didn’t care about any of it. Tears poured down her face, and she hated them, hated herself for her lack of composure and grace and calm and just hated herself for herself. The hate only made it worse, and her eyes filled and overflowed and blurred until she couldn’t see anything, just watercolor patches of greens and browns and a burst of gold as a shaft of sun struck her face...

_ Thock! _

Her hoof collided with a raised root with a sound like a hatchet striking a tree trunk. Before she could hope to catch herself, she was tumbling to the ground hard. She instinctively threw out her hands to catch her upper body and felt deadfall and pebbles bite fiercely into her palms, her shamisen launched aside. Then she was rolling, sliding over the rough earth in a tangle of limbs and bracken. After skidding for what must have been a dozen feet she crashed into something and finally, mercifully came to a stop.

It took a long second for Yenna to get her bearings, blinking and disoriented. She had slid into a kowru tree, coming to rest in the crook of two huge roots. She didn’t bother getting up--it just didn’t seem worth it. She felt scrapes across her elbows and front knees, an ache on her right flank that was definitely going to be a massive bruise, and her palms were chewed up and bleeding, plus a dozen other small nicks and dings across her body. Expected for being so stupid and clumsy; centaurs were extremely stable on four legs, but because of their mixed confirmation, when they did fall it was usually a mess. And mess described her perfectly, inside and out. 

Her eyes heated and prickled, and all her sorrow and recrimination began spilling out over her cheeks. It turned out she wasn’t nearly done crying, and as the burst of adrenaline from falling wore off, the growing awareness of all her stinging, aching new injuries only made it worse. Yenna dropped her head into her hands and sobbed, not caring that the blood and dirt on her palms mingled with tears to cover her face in a damp, grimy paste, not caring that blubbery, self-pitying sobs were no way for a good Selesnyan to comport themselves. She  _ wasn’t  _ a good Selesnyan, that much was clear, just like she wasn’t a good student. She wasn’t a good anything. All she wanted to do was lie there and let the ground swallow her up. 

Yenna wasn’t sure how long she stayed there, crumpled in a ball of hopeless sadness in the roots of the kowru. But at some point she noticed the light starting to shift, the blurred watercolor splotches of her vision turning from afternoon golds into the pinks and burnt oranges of early evening. She sniffled and wiped her face with the back of her forearm, which didn’t do much except spread the gross muck of tears, snot, blood, and dirt around. It didn’t matter. With an involuntary noise of pain as tight, bruised muscles were suddenly called to move after a long stillness, she clambered stiffly to her feet. Everything ached now--in particular her back right leg had a massive bruise on the flank that protested painfully as soon as she put weight on it--but nothing seemed broken or crippled. Body groaning, she picked her way out of the hollow of the tree roots, looking around the glade. 

She spotted a gleam of shell inlay glinted in the sun; her shamisen dangled from the fingers of a bush, snagged strings holding it aloft from a tangle of branches. For a moment she thought about leaving it there, but then felt a quick jab of pain at the thought. The instrument had been with her for years, almost as long as she had been with the Selesnya. It had been a gift from Captain Casda, one of the officers who had rescued her from the battlefield as a child; he’d apparently had it in his family for years as an heirloom, but claimed to have so little talent with it that he just kept it on the wall for show. He’d had it sent over to the Vitu-Lasha vernadi for her, with a note saying he’d hoped it would find a more worthy place in her hands than his. It had been with her for her entire life as a Selesnyan.

Gingerly, Yenna removed it from the clinging twigs of the bush.  _ I’m sorry,  _ she thought at it, carefully removing errant leaves from the strings.  _ I shouldn’t have thought about leaving you, I didn’t mean it. You didn’t do anything wrong...this is all my fault.  _ She cradled the instrument in her arms like a living thing.  _ I guess I let us both down.  _ She was out of tears now, crying replaced by sore, puffy eyes and a sense of emptiness, so she just sighed as she placed the instrument softly into its carrying satchel across her back. Her friend safely gathered up, she could continue on.

But where?

She looked around. The kowru tree soared overhead, greenly filtering the light from the canopy. Other trees reached up beneath to catch some of the light that spilled through its leaves, and down at her level bushes reached up to catch the luminous trickles that the trees had missed. Everything was a riot of green, dusted with purple and blue clusters of lupine and red blots of coralroot. Birds called from the trees, arbor minks scrambled through the trees in flashes of blonde-orange fur, and heavy opal beetles made weighty flights across the grove. Yenna frowned.

Nothing here was familiar. 

She had been through much of the parkland around Loreena’s home tree, but she felt she was quite a ways off the path now, based on how fast she had been moving when she bolted into the untamed brush. She snorted at herself.  _ Stupid. Now you’re lost too.  _ She reared up on her back legs but quickly came back down as her bruised limbs threatened to buckle under the added strain. No point in doing that again; even swollen and gritty her eyes were still sharp, and the brief glance had shown her there was nothing of use to see. No structures, landmarks, or even Warden’s markings--just wild parkland. 

She sighed again. She wasn’t worried. Everyone in the Conclave was taught from a young age how to stay safe and care for themselves outdoors. She had actually done fairly well in the creche’s survival lessons with Warden Vellesh, showing reasonable aptitude in interacting with wild animals, distinguishing both dangerous and edible plants, creating bough beds and rough lean-tos, and other basics. And besides, she knew where she was...just not  _ exactly _ where she was. She was still in the Whispering Glades, the stretch of parkland that sprawled over the southern downs and roughly connected her vernadi’s land with that of Vitu-Syra and Vuti-Renshi. If she had gone outside them, she would simply be in the more constructed parts of the city… She looked around again, her ears swivelling to catch the chatter of evening birds and the movement of small creatures in the undergrowth. Since this place was clearly the opposite of a developed city block, she must have been going the opposite direction, toward the center. 

She shifted her shamisen, trying to move it off a scraped patch of hide. Simple then. She would just keep walking until she got to more cultivated land where she could get her bearings, and then she would follow a path back to her venadi. It seemed like a sound enough plan. There was no danger here, not to a creature her size, and she was in no hurry to get back--what was she going back to anyway? She had fled from her lessons,  _ literally fled  _ like a frightened animal, and who knew if there were even lessons to go back to, or whether that was good or bad… And when she did get back she would have to try to explain everything to Loreena, and her creche would want to know what happened… The thought made her kind of sick to her stomach. 

She decided it would be best to really take her time crossing through the Whispering Glades.  _ Maybe if I take long enough getting back, everyone will just forget about me.  _ In her current state of mind, she couldn’t imagine a better outcome. Slowly, she began picking her way through the undergrowth.

Faster than she expected, the oranges of evening turned into the deep wine-reds of dusk, and then the darker purples of night. Still, Yenna decided to keep walking. The warmth of the day still lingered in the air, and a gibbous moon poured soft light over everything like cream. It might have been a little dim for some races, but her large eyes could still see everything just fine, albeit in a palette of silvers and blues. Besides, she wasn’t ready to be still--when her body stopped moving her mind picked up the slack, and that wasn’t something she wanted. Better to keep walking, let her mind concentrate on finding her path and her footing and even her aches and scrapes. Anything was preferable to just sitting alone with nothing to do but think.

She pressed on, deeper into the wild parts of the parklands. She knew that this far out, the only regular occupants were rangers and wardens, but--fortunately or unfortunately--she hadn’t seen anyone. After a while walking in the moonlight, Yenna began to feel a little better. It was actually nice out here by herself, quiet and peaceful. She didn’t have any lessons or practices to run to or fun she was missing because of it, and there was no one here to have any expectations of her, so she wasn’t spending all her energy just trying to do the right thing or avoid doing the wrong thing. And with the light bushwhacking just keeping her senses occupied, she really wasn’t thinking of anything at all. As she walked, mind mercifully quiet while she threaded through trees and tussocks, she began calming down. Her body relaxed, even with the discomfort from her fall, and she stopped feeling so agitated. Soon the walk became almost…

Peaceful. 

Yenna rarely had this experience. There was very little time to herself these days, with all of the training and practice and lessons she had to fit in, and when she was out in the parklands it was usually in the more cultivated areas close to home with her creche. She was surprised at how soothing everything was out here alone; even the parklands took on a different feeling beyond the shaped and trained plant life in the groomed public gardens. It was more free here, less subject to expectations. Yenna smiled a little, recognizing kinship with a scruffy redthorn bush, a ragged, untrimmed ash, a creeping vine that knotted itself obnoxiously over the pathway.  _ No wonder the hermits choose to live like this,  _ she thought, stepping into an open glade.

Suddenly there was a crash of leaves and snapping branches to her right. She had just enough time to reflexively stumble back as three belldeer smashed through the clearing, eyes wide in the dark. They didn’t even look at her, just surged through the open space in two quick bounds and kept going. Even as they raced through and disappeared, she glimpsed their mouths open in panic, and smelled a sharp, metallic tang that some part of her mind, long quiet, recognized as the smell of fearful prey. Frozen to the spot, she turned to look in the direction they had come from as she tried to piece the sudden event together, even as submerged primitive parts of her brain were screaming at her to move, that she should already be running, that stopping to look was inviting death.

Two bright circles were approaching rapidly through the grass, flat discs of green balelight weaving back and forth in a quick swinging pattern like a metronome. As the thing rushed toward her she saw conical teeth jutting from a long reptilian jar in spiky clusters like yucca spines, knobby blackish skin covered with protrusions like scattered boulders, heavy claws the size of her own fingers digging into the earth as the huge serpentine body whipped through the undergrowth. A ragged crown of horn sprouted from its skull, and even before it reached her it filled her nose with the acrid burn of brimstone. For a second it seemed the creature was too intent on the belldeer to notice her, that it might wend its way past her and keep to its original prey. But then the head swivelled toward her and their gazes’ met. Yenna’s eyes went wide in terror.

_ A baellisk. _

They were a Simic abomination, a blighted combination of basilisk and imp created for whatever mad reasoning the Simic used to justify their creations. A handful had escaped their labs and gotten into the city at large, where they were a danger everywhere they made their territory. Not only were they poisonous like their serpentine parentage, but when excited they emitted an infernal aura that burned any living thing that came near it. She could already see the plants around it wilting as it slowed to focus on her, grasses and flowers withering in an instant as if under months of hot sun. But it was impossible that one was here, how could such a monster have made it this deep into the Whisper Glades without being picked up by a ranger? It had to be a mistake, her imagination after a stressful day-

The brimstone smell grew so strong she could barely think, and she felt an unnatural, almost chemical heat lapping at her legs like blistering waves. The huge, improbably-toothed jaw gaped open, and she saw gobs of glowing green slime dripping from toothy stalactites, the entire inside of the thing’s mouth blazing with sickly, profane light. The sheep were forgotten--now fixed on a new target, it hissed menacingly and charged.

Her body reacted before her consciousness mind could get things together, her heart surging in her throat, and legs instinctively moving. Pushing off hard, Yenna vaulted almost straight into the air, nightmarish jaws snapping shut beneath her as she leaped over the baellisk’s head and crashed down to the ground beyond it. The ache of bruises and sting of cuts and scrapes was now gone, drowned in a tidal wave of adrenaline.  _ Runrunrunrunrun!  _ She hardly needed the voice in her head though--she was running before all four feet hit the ground, her back feet reaching past her front, cloven hooves biting into the dirt as the burning, crocodilian head whipped toward her with a blast of searing air, launching herself forward into the brush as the slam of massive jaws shutting sounded right behind her. 

Yenna tore through bushes, vines, tangling reeds, and careened around trees. On a straightaway she could have easily outpaced the creature, but here in the thickets and glens there was too much clutter to safely run at full speed. She went as fast as she dared, but her spill from hours ago playing starkly in her head, and she was horribly aware that a similar fall here would be the end. The thing was right behind her, snapping at her heels, forcing her to dodge and jank as the radiative heat of its presence pushed at this or that side of her body. Numbed by terror, part of her mind wondered if somehow it  _ wanted _ her to do that, if its hunting strategy was to force creatures to twist and change course and zig zig so they couldn’t gain enough speed, couldn’t get away. 

Even if it were true, she was helpless to do anything about it. She was no ranger; she couldn’t plan, couldn’t counter its movements, couldn’t outfight it. All she could do was run. And she did, branches raking her, clawing fresh wounds into her skin. Suddenly her right front foot plunged downward further than expected down into a miniature gully the spring rain had washed out, and she was pitching forward and down. Body electric, her legs struck out into fresh positions, compensating, wrenching her weight to offset the pitch and stumble--Yenna had never been the most graceful of her creche-- and through sheer terror she managed to shift, stay upright and keep running. But she had lost valuable ground, and as she gathered herself for another step, the baellisk was on her. She felt the monster’s teeth pierce the skin of her left thigh, sinking in like hot nails, sending pain and _I’m going to die_ through every part of her. A fresh surge of fear she didn’t know she had left roared to life and, planting her front feet, she kicked it as hard as she could square in the face.

Her hooves connected with a dull but very heavy  _ thud!  _ The teeth came free of her flesh with a sucking sensation she swore she could actually hear as it reared back, throwing its head back and away from the reach of her hooves. In that split second, she was off again. But now, she knew she was on borrowed time. Her thigh burned where the creature had bitten her; she could actually feel the noxious poison radiating out from the injury, and running would only pump it through her veins more quickly. Although it seemed like there might not even be time to worry about that--the injury itself was bad; she was forcing herself to keep running on it through raw, panicked will, but she could tell the leg was lamed. 

And raw, panicked will was not infinite.

Unable to think, she was acting on instinct now, prey searching mindlessly for an escape. She looked ahead of her, desperately scanning the undergrowth for something, anything, that would change the inevitable outcome. Because she could still hear the baellisk right behind her, feel its artificial heat pressing on her. It was closer now--and gaining. To her right, she saw a thinning of the brush and trees and a brightening of the moonlight. 

_ Open ground!  _

Her fevered brain saw the space beyond the leaves and saw safety, room to run, a way out. Pulling together her draining strength to change directions, muscles screaming, Yenna veered sharply to the left. The baellisk swung its jaws toward her; in a moment of clarity Yenna tucked her feet away from its strike, then kicked down with full force onto its skull, using it as a launching point for a desperate leap. She felt her hooves connect with bone, and it roared furiously, but she was already pushing off the thick, plated head. The beast struck out at her, but with her feet against its head the movement propelled her away, and up, and forward on her new tangent. Just a few strides to open ground, to wide swatches of escape…

The clearing just ahead, she knew she finally had the chance to put distance between herself and the bestial hunter, got her legs under her in a last powerful bound. She broke through the last of the brushwall in midair, flying out into open space with a truly impressive jump.

Then water enveloped her, striking her torso and face like a slap as she plunged under the chill surface.

For a moment her brain couldn’t comprehend what had happened, and she accidently sucked a mouthful of air into her lungs before instinct kicked in and her jaw slammed shut, and she was rolling and disoriented in a churning curtain of bubbles. Her hand struck a solid surface which her body registered as “down”; her four legs scrambled to all get on the same plane and push, shoving her upward-

Her head broke the surface, choking and gagging as her lungs expelled water with fearsome efficiency. For a second her flailing mind thought she was drowning. Then, staggering, she realized that she was in fact on her feet; the water only reached to her waist, with her torso above surface level. She looked around, head spinning.

Yenna stood about twenty feet out in a pool of water, dotted by massive lilly pads and lotus flowers. The entire “clearing” was a pond, tucked away in a glade surrounded by willows and heart-of-green bushes. Yenna looked over her shoulder; the pond was backed on the far side by a thirty-foot wall of dark granite, carved into rugged, jutting shapes by a small waterfall and softened by moss. It would have been picturesque, gleaming silver in the moonlight--if it hadn’t been where she was about to die.

The baellisk had slowed as it broke cover, hesitating upon hearing the raucous splash of her landing. Now it was advancing again, it’s jaws parting to allow a bright, sickly yellow tongue to slide out tasting the air, scenting her. In the water, she could never hope to outpace it as it tracked her along the shore, and there was no chance of climbing the rough stone abutting the other shore of the pool. There were no openings left. And as she stared in terror, the world beginning to blur like watercolor as the creature’s poison leaked deeper into her body, it began to approach. 

It moved slowly and paused at the water’s edge; as one of its feet broke the water’s surface there was a hiss of steam, strangely greenish as it curled up around the baellisk’s chin. It hissed and withdrew its foot. For a second Yenna thought, hoped, prayed that it couldn’t tolerate water, that she could wait it out here in the pond until it lost interest. But whether its desire for a meal outweighed its pain at the touch of water, or whether the steam boiling up around its blistering limbs just startled it, the thing soon decided she was worth the trouble. Taking slow but determined steps out into the pool, moving through the water and curtains of sinister vapor with the cold grace of a crocodile, the baellisk closed in on her.

Yenna instinctively moved backward, but her poisoned, exhausted legs were turning numb and unreliable. Her hoof missed where she thought the floor of the pond should be, and she nearly slipped off her feet and went under. She froze, her trembling legs locked in place. She was certain she literally couldn’t go another step.

Reaching back for her satchel, her hand closed around the smooth, wooden neck of her shamisen. It wasn’t much--wasn’t nearly enough, she knew in her heart of hearts--but it didn’t matter. Her brain was going still, though whether from toxin, fear, or the inevitability of it, she couldn’t say. It didn’t matter--she was suddenly resolved not to die meekly. Better to at least put up a stand.  _ Fight to the last.  _ She didn’t know where the thought came from, but it felt right and strangely comforting. In a small way, at least. She pulled the shamisen loose from its leather case and raised it over her shoulder like a club. If she was going to die here, she would at least give the monster a faceful of pain for the effort. It slithered toward her, the water boiling angrily around the dark knobs and plates of its skin, its eyes blazing with a flat, unwavering focus. Yenna lifted the shamisen and hoped it would be over quickly.

There was a sudden roar, like a crash of floodwaters into a gully, and the world was shifting wildly. Yenna’s vision spun and tilted as she was swept up off her feet, the ground beneath her surging to life and lifting up out of the water in a rushing cascade. She rose up, first through the water, then above it into the air on some sort of platform. Below her, she saw the baellisk snarl up at her, but it was backing away, lowering its head as if threatened. Back legs collapsed under her and front legs not far behind, Yenna turned to look.

Her toxin-spiked mind struggled to understand what she saw.

A massive mat of lily pads had lifted off the bottom of the pond, scooping her up with them. Any one of them would have been wide enough for her to lie on, and there were dozens of them, forming a single wide raft of overlapping green discs. Following the line of plants with her eyes, Yenna saw that the platform of lilies was the termination of two limbs, or at least something limb-like, made of lily stems and aquatic plants knotted into the shape of sinews and tendons, coated in a skin of flowing water. Moving upward, the limbs joined a bodily trunk of dark mud and water-smoothed stone bound in the heavy stalks of plants as if lashed together, all at the core of watery sheath. Finally, the peak of the mass of plant and pond material was a rounded top that looked something like a head, covered in long strips of water-weeds like the shaggy fur of some great beast. As Yenna stared, two buds in the center of the blunt, dome-shaped head poked out of the coating of water and unfurled, revealing startling blue centers surrounded by white petals.

_ Eyes. Those are eyes.  _ If true...it was looking right at her.

Yenna gulped. She had seen elementals before on occasion, but those were summoned edifices of mana, called forth by spellcasters to serve a purpose. She felt keenly that this being, whatever it was, was far older and more intrinsic than that. It didn’t feel like a summoned being--it felt like it belonged here. Like here belonged to it. This creature wasn’t a servant, but a spirit of some sort. Reeling, a word popped into her head from Warden Vellesh’s lessons, a story had told them of creatures like this that still lived in some of the wildest islands of the parkland.

Leshy. A nature guardian.

A hiss drew her attention back to the pond below. Still crouched in a circle of loudly boiling water and thick streams of greenish vapor, the baellisk snarled. It clearly still wanted Yenna, loathe to be cheated out of its prey...but the leshy was as tall as a two-story building, and more than enough to give it pause. Angry and uncertain, the reptilian creature snapped its jaws in a flash of sickly bright-green flesh, clearly unsure whether to advance or retreat.

With a sound like a flash flood, rushing water and grinding boulders rolling together, the leshy shifted half a pace forward, looming over the foul beast. Something in its primitive mind clicked, and it decided the hunting would be better elsewhere. It cast a single, baleful eye toward Yenna, and with a final low hiss scuttled back out of the water and slunk away into the brush.

As she watched it go, Yenna was flooded with relief. Or at least, what should have been relief. But instead of the warm reassurance of a danger passed, she instead felt a tingling in her legs and lower body that left her shaking, unable to control her limbs. Her front feet slid forward, no longer able to prop her up, and she collapsed onto her belly on the woven mat of lily pads. A painful heat was spreading through her rear legs and back, dripping through her veins like some acidic Izzet concoction. Her thoughts foggy, Yenna slowly realized that with the adrenaline draining away, she could now feel the baellisk’s poison working its way through her body.

There was a shudder and she felt herself rising. The leshy was lifting her up to its face, examining her. It turned its head to the side like curious animal and leaned forward, the water flowing in a smooth sheet over everything but its lotus-flower eyes. She looked back at it. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she vaguely remembered that forest spirits were supposed to have to power to heal, to purify…

“Please,” she said, hearing the tremor in her voice. “Help.”

The deific creature looked at her. The petals of its eyes furled and unfurled in a strange blink, the water flowing over it glistening in the moonlight. It seemed to be trying to tell her something, but she couldn’t understand, couldn’t make sense of what it wanted.

“Please,” she whispered. She swore she could feel the searing toxin moving through her inch by inch, burning her away. Killing her. She wanted to cry, but there was nothing left from before but heat and prickling pain. She closed her eyes, a wracking sob catching in her chest. “Please, just help me. I...I don’t want to die.” She was shuddering, breath hitching in her lungs, her body going through the motions of crying even empty of tears. She couldn’t bear that after such a miraculous escape, she was going to die here after all, curled in the very palm of a nature god. She heard a noise from the leshy, a silky rustle of wet plants and a burble of water; she just shook her head wordlessly. 

The noise became louder, more insistent. Despite her awe of the creature, she wanted to push it away, to tell it that it was no use. She couldn’t understand--she wasn’t smart enough, intuitive enough. She lived surrounded by people who were wise and serene, who heard the voices of trees and knew the minds of animals and saw every leaf and blade of grass, but not her. She was a negligent child who didn’t pay enough attention during lessons because she was daydreaming about frivolous things. She wasn’t cut out for this life, she never had been.

And now that life would end because she wasn’t good enough.

The noise was louder now, pressing in on her until her sorrow and rage and fear overwhelmed her reverence for the leshy and burst forth like a bubble. 

“Don’t you get it?” Yenna yelled, balling her fists, squeezing her eyes shut tight. “I don’t understand! I  _ can’t!”  _ The noise had risen to the volume of a storm, pouring in on her from all sides; she looked up angrily. “Whatever it is, I’m not-”

She met its eyes, mandalas of blue and white petals both alien and familiar as the forest, and stopped. There was something there on the edges, woven in between the rushing insistence of the leshy and her pulse hammering in her ears. Something, a sound, almost musical… Yenna’s ears moved instinctively, ears that could hear a fractionally out-of-tune string, ears that could pick out a song before the singer was visible in the distance, ears that heard the notes that were supposed to be there before they were played. The sound seemed to come from everywhere, shifting and slippery, dancing just out of reach. But it was there, all around her. The music filled up the periphery of her hearing, so tantalizingly close.  _ This is music,  _ she thought,  _ this is mine. My entire life, this has been mine.  _ It was the truth, and it rung something inside of her like the tone of a bell.  _ I can do this.  _

Quieting herself, Yenna held her breath, fixing on the sound like a pole star, and  _ listened. _

The sound slid into place, and the world rushed in. There was a place inside of her that had been empty, and she had never known it was empty because she had never known it existed. But she knew about it now because it was suddenly filled and overfilled and flowing out of every pore and memory. She heard everything. She heard the sound the moonlight made when it struck the water. She heard the sound of a chick growing inside its egg in a nest high overhead. She heard the sound of the baellisk’s venom moving through her blood, the sound of her flesh shutting down as the poison touched it. She heard the sound of the past, of parents she had never known, of her mother’s laugh and her father singing while he chopped wood outside. She heard Ravnica, voices or maybe thoughts--there was no difference between the two--people fighting and praying and singing and weeping and laughing and hoping, hoping for the best, hoping for themselves and each other and the future.

And underneath it all, the song, the music of the world itself, weaving everything together into a grand, beautiful symphony of souls. It was the sound life made, not just the living things everyone thought they knew but the life of the water and the stone and the sky, the life of Ravnica and everything it was. 

Somewhere in the infinitely complex cascade of notes, a single line rose to the top, tones of pondweed and milfoil whispering beneath the surface, of bulrush stems scraping against each other in autumn, of heart-shaped lily pads opening to catch the sun, of water forming silken ripples under the touch of the wind. The leshy. 

It was a struggle to turn her attention to that one line of sound. Not because she was overwhelmed, exactly, because the feeling was not unpleasant--more that there was so much to hear and experience that it seemed a shame to dwell on any one thing. She wanted to stay submerged in the euphoric totality of it and just let the world-song wash over her like a current, bringing one thing after another to her, through her, past her… Still, she turned her ears to the voice of the nature god, listening to its individual song streaming through the whole like a harmony line. 

And where before there had been only frustration, the nature god’s intent was now clear, uncluttered by any barriers between them. It could indeed heal her, save her. But not without something offered in return. Distantly she heard a counterpoint harmony of Warden Velleren’s voice--or was it a memory of him? Or his very thoughts?--saying something to that effect, old stories of elder days when people brought sacrifices and pledges to such beings in return for benefactions. It was no summoned creature to do the bidding of a master; it was the very essence of this place. Ancient laws, older than the Guildpact, perhaps older even than the emergence of people on Ravnica, dictated that for it to grant a boon, an exchange must be given. There was no avarice or malice in the demand, because it wasn’t really a demand. It simply  _ was _ , a fundamental balance to reality like the flow of energy or laws of motion. To have the gift of its power to save her, she would have to give it something.

That would mean leaving the worldsong.

Why was she considering doing that again?

It was beautiful here. Perfect. Everyone she had ever known, would ever know, was right here with her. Why would she leave?

What was so important again?

There was something, something happening that she distantly felt she was supposed to pay attention to...

_ Oh, right. _

Yenna remembered, vaguely, that she was dying. That was it, certainly, the thing she was supposed to pay attention to--t just seemed less important than it had a minute ago. Without knowing how she knew, she was nonetheless sublimely certain that death would not disrupt her experience here, connected to the unified song of the entire world. In fact, she felt she would hardly even notice it. She could easily just stay here. Things like life and death were irrelevant now, immersed in...everything. Everyone. The truth of the world. 

_ Not yet.  _

Yenna couldn’t tell if it was her own thought or someone else’s in her head. But it was insistent and close, a deep pizzicato so close that it came from inside her. She wanted to ignore it, to stay here and experience all the lifetimes of sound and emotion inside the worldsong. But, grudgingly, she felt the thought was right. There were things, elsewhere, that she needed to do.  _ Not yet.  _ Reluctantly, she swam upward out of the full strength of the current into the shallows of the song, moving toward the individual voice of the leshy. As she rose toward the thinner surface of the worldsong, she could feel her body once again. It was aching, burning, sick. She questioned if she  _ really _ needed to turn her attention back to this, but the thought returned, gently but firmly moving her away from the song’s center:  _ not yet.  _ For a moment she wanted to resist, struck with sudden, icy fear that she would never be able to get back, never hear the song again--that she would be left with the empty place inside of her, only now she would be aware of it, would feel its emptiness... 

_ No.  _ The reassurance came from nowhere and everywhere. The worldsong had always been here, would always be here. You could no more leave it than you could leave your own consciousness. She was a part of it, and it was a part of her. She had only to listen--now that she knew how. It was her last excuse to refuse the increasingly demanding pull of the real, of her faltering physical form and the broad floral hands of the leshy and the moonlit pond.  _ Not yet. _ Reluctantly she acquiesced. She turned her ears to the harmony that belonged to her body, focusing only on those few notes, and stepped away from the sound of the worldsong.

Suddenly there was pain, shivering cold, creeping nausea. The omnipresent sound was gone, leaving everything startlingly quiet, empty. Her mind was only hers once again, thick and reeling with the poison beginning to overtake it. Everything hit much too fast.

The sensation was like drowning.

Instinctive panic shot through her like a bolt of lighting and her body tried to shoot to its feet, to flee madly away and escape the sharp-edged strangeness of everything, of  _ reality _ … Fortunately, her legs were unable to obey her mind, and she just flailed in place for a moment as understanding came back into her brain, like waking from a deep dream. 

_ I am a person. My name is Yenna. I am here. I am alive.  _ As consciousness began to seep back into her mind, she grimly appended the last thought.  _ For now.  _

But not for much longer if she didn’t do something. Lingering sensations from her experience filled her with regret, longing, at turning her ears and mind away from the worldsong, but now that she was here she was a regular creature again, and as such, desperately wanted to live. She looked around, her vision blurring and every bright spot turning into a flaring disc of rainbow color. The toxins were moving through her quickly, affecting her senses now. Soon, she wasn’t going to be able to do anything… Yenna met the lotus-eyes of the leshy looking down at her. She found, to her surprise, that even without being immersed in the worldsong she still retained some of her understanding, and she sensed its intent upon her, its desire to help, and its need for an offering in order to do so. Feeling that understanding still inside her filled her with a new resolve, and she forced her tired, toxic thoughts to start working again.

An exchange. An offering. She needed something to give it--but what? She quickly took stock, but even as she did it she was well aware of the result. She didn’t have anything, certainly nothing of value. All she had was the shamisen, still clutched in her hand from fending off the baellisk.

And Yenna knew what to give it.

She reached into her satchel and pulled out the ivory bachi, gently picking it across the strings, tuning them with the swiftness of muscle memory even as she felt numbness moving through her shoulders. Her chest was tightening now, making it harder to breathe… She ignored it, ignored all the pain and fear creeping along with it. Normally, performing for strangers filled her with nervousness, worry that she would make a mistake--but now, with her very life depending on it, she felt strangely fearless. Peaceful. For years, she had struggled to reconcile her abilities with her desires, her need to hone her talent with her desire to experience the world and the people in it. 

Now, in this moment, she saw that the two were the same thing.The song was in her, and the leshy, and the world, and they were all inside of it. The music,  _ her _ music, was not a separate part of her life, an isolated room with the world on the outside--it was a door.

_ I can do this. _

Yenna reached inside of herself, grabbed the handle of the door, and flung it open.

Her fingers moved over the strings with the unthinking grace of a bird in flight, years of practice letting her hear every note before it was played, letting her feel the sound each string would make as soon as her fingers touched it, before the bachi struck. It wasn’t a piece she had heard before, at least not from outside of herself, but it was there, rising up for the strings as though she were opening a lock to free it. She played the sound of being taken in, accepted, given a home. She played the sound of loneliness, of feeling like the only one to feel the way she did. She played the sound of laughter and friendship, of games shared, of closeness. She played the sound of expectations, demands, a future laid out in front of her that she might have chosen but had never been asked. She played the sound of being loved, of the awareness of her creche and her vernadi around her, of knowing she was safe with them. She played the sound of perceiving every failure, of never feeling good enough. She played the sound of warm summer nights looking at the stars, wondering about a different life. She played the life she had, a life that was blessed and kind and welcoming, a life that meant everything to her. She played differences. She played unity. She played hope and fear and desire all vying in her heart every day.

She had nothing else to offer but everything inside of her, so that was what she gave. She could hear the worldsong thrumming at the edges of consciousness and let it guide her, let it shape her own thoughts and feelings and memories into notes and chords, let her fingers set the shape free like smoke from a burnt offering. And, in what would seem the strangest thing of all when she thought about it later, she never had a moment’s doubt that it would work. 

After all, what could be a fairer trade for a life restored than a life shared?

As she played, she felt the leshy’s liquid skin rise onto the lily pad mat and flow over her feet, her legs, up over her body. It seeped through her velvety fur, cool against her skin, then into her skin like rainwater into the earth. The poisoning began moving in reverse. She felt it drain away, pulling back from her body. The pressure on her chest eased. Her vision cleared. The numbness faded away from her limbs. And the burning was soothed, like the embers of a fire drenched in water. Finally, with a gasp and last note ringing in the night air, it was gone.

Yenna stayed still for a moment, breathing, feeling her body back in working order. She let her ears sweep around in slow pans, and was pleased to hear the sound of starlight, the noise of sleep from the animals in the burrows and nests, the voice of the flowers. Lingering traces of her time exposed to the worldsong. The sounds were fading like afterimages, but the worldsong itself was still there--if she quieted herself, she could hear it in the background, flowing through the space between heartbeats. 

She looked up at the leshy, and it stared back at her with its blossoms. She could tell it was happy with her song, the water rushing over its form making pleasant noises. It had not had a visitor in some time, had lain long asleep without the company of people. It had found this to be an engaging encounter. Clambering to her feet--legs still somewhat shaky, she noted dreamily--she bowed to the towering spirit. With a rumble of rocks and the liquid rustle of plants stems and lily pads, it tilted its upper half forward and bowed back.

She smiled. And even though it had no real face to speak of, she felt it smiling back. It slipped through the water to the bank, the pond sloshing around it, and lowered its matted lilypad hands to the surface. Holding her hands out for balance, Yenna stepped off onto the grassy shore. She noticed that not only had the poison been cleaned from her system, but all of her wounds were healed, the cuts on her hands closed over and the baellisk bite nothing but a set of barely-visible nicks in her striped fur. She looked back up at the leshy. It watched her, and she turned her ears, listening sideways for the worldsong, for its voice in the music.

_ Come back? _

She placed her palms on the edges of its form, feeling the smooth, waxy surface of the leaves under her fingers, cool in the moonlight but vibrant. She hummed a little melody back at it, a handful of joyous, reassuring notes.

_ Of course. _

A feeling of satisfaction, acceptance. With barely a ripple, the entire massive body of the nature god dropped down and slipped under the surface of the water. Making sure her shamisen was secured and comfortable--it had saved her, after all--Yenna turned for home. She could tell where home was now, just as she knew she would be able to find her way back to this pond whenever she wished. She could hear the sound of Vitu-Lasha, her home tree, and she simply started following that. She could hear other things too, lingering remnants of the great all encompassing song. She heard rangers moving through the trees; likely looking for her, she realized, although with the soft dream logic that still infused her mind, she avoided them rather than seeking them out. She heard the baellisk as well, almost a mile north and doing its best to slink away from the net of searching rangers. She would have to tell people about it later, so it could be rounded up. For now, she was still in a kind of altered state, and she was content to let the sound lead her on the path it chose.

As she approached the homefields of her vernadi, she heard--felt--the voices of people she knew, worried voices searching, asking. Her heart went out to them, but they would be alright. She had her own destination. Word of her safety would spread soon enough once she was there. She heard anyone ahead of her hundreds of yards before they knew she was there, and let her legs steer carefully around them of her own accord. She was almost there now.

Stepping out of the brush, her hooves struck the cobblestones with a dull thudding sound. It reminded her a little of the leshy’s core rocks rolling against each other, and the thought filled her with warmth. Looking ahead through the ivy-dressed columns of the long arcade, she saw a light in the circular room at the end, a lantern glinting gold through the glass panes. Maestra Talesin was awake. The strange, ubiquitous sounds were fading now, but Yenna could hear her guilt and worry across the courtyard, just like she could hear the footsteps of the moths on the glass pane--drawn toward the lit room, as she was.

Yenna passed through the entrance and walked between the rows of columns. The glow was dimming in her mind now, enough that she was starting to feel nervous about talking to her Maestra after this afternoon, nervous that she was going to be yelled at for running away, that she would be in even more trouble… Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes for a moment, walking by feel as she reached out, or in, for the worldsong. It was still there, still with her. She let the breath go in a shaky exhale. She had faced baellisk and leshy and the sound of existence itself--if there was ever a time she felt prepared to face her instructor, it was now.

She had reached the door outside Maestra Talesin’s chambers--one of the few doors among the Selesnya, to create a quiet place for practicing music. Proud to see that her hand was only trembling a little, Yenna knocked. Maestra Taelsin opened the door in an instant, as if she had been waiting. Her face was a mix of hope and fear; clearly she was expecting a messenger, news of some sort. 

Clearly she was not expecting Yenna.

For a second she just stared, blinking mutely. Then she grabbed Yenna in an uncharacteristic hug, startling both of them. The words all came out of her in a babble, questions, asking where she had been, what happened, was she alright, was she hurt, was she safe--Yenna even thought she heard an apology somewhere in the tumult. After the peace and cohesion of the worldsong, she found this sudden outburst a little jarring, and took an involuntary step back.

“Yenna,” the Maestra said, still breathless but managing to bring herself under control. “Where were you? What happened?”

“I-” Yenna stopped, thinking about it. There was a lot, some of which she wasn’t certain she was ready to share yet. But she would figure that out when it came to it. For now, there was another important matter to address. “Kind of a lot, actually. But first…” Yenna reached into her satchel and pulled out her shamisen, her friend, her key.

“I have something I want to play for you.” 

**Author's Note:**

> So, to the surprise of probably no one, I was very good at doing school when I was young--smart-ish, at least in the ways that people wanted to measure. Because of this, I was put into more and more advanced classes to meet my ability,and I sort of definitely developed a weird complex about living up to expectations... Anyway, this was a story unrelated to that. Obviously.
> 
> I wanted to explore the philosophy of the Selesnya a bit here. They emphasis communal existence, and get into shades of Marxisms with the whole "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" outlook. I wanted to do a story that balanced the idea that this is in fact working, and that this philosophy has brought the Selesnya abundance and success, while also acknowledging that this kind of lifestyle where you are expected to live up to your abilities for the good of the group would probably be a struggle for a child. Also, you never know when you might run into an escaped Simic abomination--they're Ravnica's random encounters!
> 
> Finally, the shamisen is a dope instrument - if you haven't heard of them, check out the Wagakki Band (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoOsvFvOqfA).


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